This week, we sit down with Dr. Lionel Yaceczko to discuss his new book on the fourth century Roman grammarian, Ausonius of Bordeaux. In looking at his life, we dive deeper into various aspects of classical education. As Ausonius lived through an important period of religious, political, and cultural change, considering his life also affords us the opportunity to think about how the advent of Christianity affected (and continues to affect) classical education.
With Christmas fast approaching, perhaps this discussion may serve to remind us that teaching is pointing and that its ultimate purpose is to point us to the Teacher.
Show Highlights
Suggested Reading
Ausonius Grammaticus: The Christening of Philology in the Late Roman West by Lionel Yaceczko
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire by Peter Brown
The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown
The Regensburg Address by Pope Benedict XVI
Also on the Forum
Continuing with the theme of mentoring, this week Mr. David Maxham discusses how we, as parents and teachers, can better mentor struggling students by taking a step back and focusing on the basics. He offers three practical guideposts for these wonderful guys to strive for as they take steps toward becoming the man they were made to be. We remain, as always, optimistic.
After establishing a relationship of trust with your mentees, Mr. Maxham recommends helping our boys structure their days around the following three key moments:
Anchoring resolutions to these three moments, Mr. Maxham explains, helps the boys to achieve their goals. As half the battle in achieving a goal lies in being mindful of it, attaching them to parts of the day that occur without fail can be a strategy for success.
A good place to start when building the foundation could be: a morning offering after waking up, a brief moment of recollection at midday, and an examination of conscience before going to bed at night. As the boys develop more goals, having this framework in place will be a helpful support.
Moreover, as parents, we can help our sons develop these habits by practicing them both ourselves and together as a family. A quick morning offering at breakfast or a brief moment of family prayer in the evening are excellent ideas. And asking our children to pray for us is a great way to not only help them pray, but also to help each of us, who, as we all know, need all the grace we can get. Although there are many things that a six year old boy may not be able to help his parents with, he can pray for them; and that is worth the whole world.
Please include links to books:
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
In this week’s episode, we sit down with Pat Kilner, a graduate of The Heights, former Heights teacher, Heights dad, and now Chairman of the Board of Directors to discuss his new book, Find Your Six: Stop Lead Generating and Start Building Influence. Whether you are in college or high school, a young professional or a seasoned veteran, this week’s conversation centers on something that is crucial for everyone: mentorship.
This mentorship is something that we sometimes take for granted as Heights students, but what happens after The Heights, when your mentor is no longer hunting you down after 3rd period for a check in? How do you find good counsel then, on foreign turf and starting from ground zero?
Drawing on both his personal experience and formal research for the book, Pat encourages us to find and foster relationships with influencers. As the conversation continues, Pat explains that influencers are really nothing other than great mentors and that perhaps more than anything else, it is finding good mentors that will help one be successful both in his professional career and in his personal life. To this end, he offers advice to college students and young professionals about how to find possible mentors, secure meetings, and approach that first conversation with sincere curiosity and a desire to learn from the wisdom that the other has to offer.
In the end, Pat shares that these relationships should grow into life-long friendships of mutual benefit. The aim is not to pull mere facts and data points, as one does from google, but to develop an authentic relationship with someone who is a living source of wisdom and to whom one can turn throughout the course of his life. Moreover, once we have benefitted from this wisdom, it’s our turn to pass it on. Way leads on to way and the tradition continues.
Show Highlights
Recommended Reading
Find Your Six: Stop Lead Generating and Start Building Influence
Also on The Forum
In this episode of HeightsCast, we feature the speech delivered by Headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, to attendants of The Heights School's 2021 Fall Open House.
This week on HeightsCast, we feature a recording of the first Heights Lecture event of the new school year, featuring Alvaro de Vicente:
What is optimism? Is it naive to be optimistic? How is optimism related to hope? How, in the end, do we raise sons who can look life's challenges squarely in the face with the the hint of a smile on their lips, knowing that all is in good hands? Join our Headmaster, Alvaro de Vicente, for an evening lecture on how to raise optimistic, hopeful young men.
Our time, like most all others, has its challenges. Spend an evening with fellow parents interested in keeping their sons' visage fixed firmly on the fullness of reality, and the opportunities of the present moment.
Bad news is all around us. It always has been. It always will be. As if personal and family challenges weren’t enough, we have an attention economy that seems dead set on giving a generation of young people chronic anxiety about seemingly cataclysmic events. How can we prepare our children to handle bad news? Quite simply, by handling it well ourselves, remaining saintly and cool under fire. How do we do that? Listen in to learn more.
Additional Resources:
As Mr. de Vicente explains, parents’ discussions of these questions ought principally to consider their son’s level of self-mastery. Like any tool, if a smartphone is to be of help rather than harm, the user must be prepared to use it and not be used by it.
On a practical level, the two basic questions to be asked are:
To answer the first question, Mr. de Vicente suggests that parents consider:
In order to answer the third point, it is helpful to look at whether a boy has demonstrated self-mastery in the following areas:
While no-one is perfect, if a child has not displayed a certain level of self-mastery in these areas of his life, it will be hard for him to use a smartphone well. Indeed, it is far easier for a boy to put a shirt on a hanger or make use of a calendar than it is for him to resist the algorithms of technologies whose aim it is for him to be unable to. If he does not do the former, one ought not assume he will do the latter.
In the end, using smartphones well is not a matter of learning how to navigate technology per se, which is a skill that is not learned with much difficulty. It is, rather, a matter of developing self-mastery, which is a virtue that requires both time and perhaps more than little toil.
Show Highlights
Also from The Forum
Digital Minimalism: Creating a Philosophy of Personal Technology Use
Digital Minimalism: Creating a Philosophy of Personal Technology Use, Part II
Whether or not one’s work is clearly connected to the classical ideal of contemplation, the goal of education converges in the heart of a man who knows he is a son of God; and who, like the Son of God, sanctifies his ordinary work.
Show Highlights
Suggested Reading
The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers
Passionately Loving the World by St. Josemaria Escriva
In certain school systems, it is perhaps more common to find students dissecting samples and diagraming abstractions. The boys in the Lower School at The Heights, however, begin their scientific formation not in a lab, among dead specimens, but in nature, among living creatures. Their text book is not full of paper, but of paper’s source, trees; for their primary text is the book of nature itself.
In this week's episode, Eric Heil takes us outdoors--so to speak--for a discussion of natural history. With over fourteen years of experience teaching at The Heights, in addition to having spent time as a researcher both for at the Bronx Zoo and the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, Eric offers us thoughts both practical and lofty.
First, Eric explains what natural history is and how it differs from other ways of approaching science at the elementary level. Then, he considers what a typical natural history lesson might look like. Next, Eric expounds the elements of nature journaling, a typical exercise for a natural history class. In particular, he explains John Muir Laws’ three step framework for nature journaling:
Lastly, the discussion takes a turn for the transcendental, as Eric considers some of the existential fruits of natural history.
Beyond books and diagrams, and indeed even the boy’s own words and sketches, the study of natural history draws students into that mystery which moves those animals they have found. Perhaps this is the reason why natural history has been deemed the most important subject taught in the Valley: the silence that it instills is the beginning of a prayer; indeed, the greatest prayer, which is gratitude.
Show Highlights
Suggested Reading
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
A Natural History of North American Trees by Donald Culross Peattie
Nature’s Events: A Notebook of the Unfolding Seasons by John Serrao
Observing Insect Lives by Donald Stokes (and several other Stokes Nature Guides)
Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth
Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification by Thomas J. Elpel
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws (and www.johnmuirlaws.com)
The Naturalist’s Notebook by Nathaniel T. Wheelwright & Bernd Heinrich
natureoutside.com nature journal website by Steven Stolper
The Forest by Roger Caras
The Tree Identification Book by George W. D. Symonds
Sketching Outdoors in Autumn by Jim Arnosky
Find the Constellations by H. A. Rey (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame)
Insects (A Golden Guide from St. Martin’s Press) Revised
Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America, 6th Edition (Peterson Field Guides)
Also on The Forum
Webinar: How to Keep a Nature Journal
On Nature Journals and Observant Souls
“Can I catch it?”: On Handling Wildlife
Reading Recommendations for Keeping a Nature Journal
Ray Bradbury once remarked that, to destroy a culture, burning books is not necessary; all that is needed is to convince people to stop reading them. And, of course, the easiest way to sway people from reading is to keep them illiterate. Indeed, this is also the best way to rob them of their liberty. Frederick Doublas once remarked that “once you learn to read you will forever be free.”
Now, it may be true that more people are literate today than ever before. Some statistics indicate that around eighty-six percent of adults in the world can read and write at a basic level. Compare this statistic to data from the early nineteenth century, when only twelve percent of people in the world could read, and there is indeed much to celebrate.
But, what about other forms of literacy? Are people more culturally literate now? Can they read deeply, for understanding and not merely for a surface-level comprehension? What does it even mean to be literate? As educators--and particularly educators drawing from and adding to the liberal arts tradition--it is paramount that we consider such questions.
Here to talk about reading and its many forms is Dr. Lionel Yaceczko, lover of languages and teacher of Classics at The Heights School. In this episode, Dr. Yaceczko sits down for a discussion of Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book. Using Adler’s book as a springboard, we first run through the three kinds of reading, specified by the end to which they aim:
Second, Dr. Yaceczko helps us tackle what he calls the perennial problems that can make reading difficult, namely vocabulary and syntax, as well as some of the stumbling blocks that are particular to contemporary readers. Third, we consider Adler’s four levels of reading:
In particular, Dr. Yaceczko delves into the third level of reading--analytical--the preparation for which Adler argues ought to be the goal of a liberal arts education at the secondary school level.
To be sure, the development of the capacity for analytical reading is no small task, but it is well worth the effort; for the difficulty of the endeavor comes from the loftiness of the goal. Despite the ardor of the task, rest assured: with patience our sons--and ourselves--may little-by-little grow into better readers. After all, the attainment of any goal, no matter how lofty, begins with small steps; it is from the valley that one ascends to the heights.
Show Highlights
Suggested Reading
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
Aristotle for Everybody by Mortimer J. Adler
Also on the Forum
Forming Deep Workers with Cal Newport
Eulexia: The Goal of Deep Reading by Lional Yaceczko
Summer Reading with a Purpose with Tom Longano
How to Master the Art of Reading Outside by Tom Longano
Dr. Mehan on Children’s Literature and Human Flourishing: Introducing the Handsome Little Cygnet
Mentioned in the Episode
A Crack in Creation by Jennifer Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg
Timaeus by Plato
Great Expectations by Jane Austin
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
Dr. Matt Mehan introduces us to The Handsome Little Cygnet, a delightful book about a Cygnet growing up in the heart of the big apple. Our fluffy hero introduces his human counterparts to concepts of nature, mercy, and regaining the way after it's been lost. Parents, too, can see here an example of patience and optimism while guiding our cygnets towards flourishing, naturally.
The Handsome Little Cygnet (https://www.amazon.com/Handsome-Little-Cygnet-Matthew-Mehan/dp/1505120608/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=handsome+little+cygnet&qid=1627673893&sr=8-1)
What Winston Churchill once said of buildings, we too can say of family culture. Namely, that we first shape it, and thereafter it shapes us. Indeed, this is especially true for our children, who are particularly impressionable. Whether it is the artwork in a classroom, a coach’s demeanor on the sports field, or that stack of books in the living room, our children notice and are formed by everything that surrounds them.
Although summer break is now in full swing, parenting has no vacations. Rather, in many ways parenting intensifies during the breaks, for it is during these times that our homes are perhaps most full. As such, now is a fitting moment to consider the culture we are creating in our homes.
To this end, this week we revisit an episode from our archives. Based on a letter he sent to parents, in this episode, Mr. Alvaro de Vicente offers us seven ideas on how to foster a healthy and happy culture in the home:
As a school is like a boy’s second home, the home is his first school. And it is in this school that we, as parents, can help him cultivate those virtues, which he will carry with him throughout his entire life--and, God willing, into the next.
Show Highlights
Also on the Forum
If the recent pandemic has taught us anything, it is that the unexpected is to be expected. While certainly not always easy, we have also perhaps learned that the unexpected can be an invitation for adventure, if only we have the eyes to see it as such. Indeed, for many students around the country, the unexpected pandemic was a spur to the adventure of a gap year--or two.
Now, as many of our students will begin--or perhaps return--to college in the coming months, it is fitting that we revisit an old podcast, originally published in 2018, on life after high school.
In this episode, we sit down with Arthur Brooks, formerly the president of the American Enterprise Institute and currently a professor both at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, for a conversation about college and whether it is the right next step for every prep school graduate. In the episode, Dr. Brooks:
Now is a perfect time for us--parents, teachers, and students alike--to think more deeply about what college is for; and, indeed, what life is for. In this way, if college is in our son’s path, he may thus make the most of his education. And regardless of if college is in his path, he will thus know that this life is best spent refreshing the souls of others and glorifying God in his daily work.
Show Highlights
Suggested Reading
Resources
In his famous intellectual and spiritual autobiography, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton remarks that the main problem for philosophers is how they can “contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it.” The attainment of this double need--for surprise and for security--is, he maintains, at the heart of human happiness.
Modernity poses similar questions to educators who, though at home in classical and medieval thought, nevertheless desire to prepare their students to live in the middle of the world. Namely:
To help us begin to answer these questions, we welcome to HeightsCast Dr. Daniel Bernardus, a theoretical biologist by training, teacher and tutor at Amsterdam University College by profession, and a philosopher and author by passion. In this episode, Dr. Bernardus introduces us to the ideas of Leonardo Polo, a Spanish philosopher from the University of Navarre, whose work just might offer us a way forward.
Can we integrate the modern, the classical, and the Christian? Can we love the modern world and God first? Listen in and see for yourself.
Show Highlights
Suggested Reading
Resources
Missed Part I? Click here.
Continuing last week’s conversation, in this episode Dr. Newport delves into two things that have become ubiquitous in our lives: texting and email. Whether it is logistical texts with our kids or emails for work, these two technologies can occupy a large portion of our days. Indeed, even a quick text or email can cost us time, as we shift our attention between different contexts.
While texting and email may by now feel like second nature, have we ever stopped to think about how best to use these technologies?
In addition to tackling these topics, Cal runs through three practices to help us better spend that treasure which is our time:
To close, Cal offers some words of wisdom to our graduating seniors, as they head off to college. If they can learn to use technology well, in an integrated and intentional way, they will be at a tremendous advantage. Their time will double, their focus sharpen, and--what is more--they’ll form meaningful friendships along the way.
Show Highlights
Suggested Reading
Additional Listening
For these next two episodes, we welcome back Dr. Cal Newport, professor of computer science at Georgetown University and New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including Digital Minimalism and A World Without Email.
In this week’s episode, we will focus on the first of these two books, Digital Minimalism, and how to go about developing a deliberate and purposeful approach to our use of technology. And remember, our children are always watching and learning. In next week’s episode, we’ll dive into a specific application of this philosophy to email and texting as well.
But for now, Digital Minimalism. It has been said in other contexts that the choice is not between philosophy and no philosophy, but between good philosophy and bad philosophy; having no philosophy is itself a philosophy, albeit a disastrous one. The same holds true for our philosophy or approach to technology which, although often vital in the modern world, can be dangerous if used mindlessly.
In this episode:
Learn about the history and psychology of smartphones and social media.
Listen to Cal discuss his philosophy of digital minimalism.
Hear about the thirty day “digital declutter” and why you should try it for yourselves--maybe even this July?
Gain some practical wisdom about implementing the philosophy in your homes including Cal's take on when our sons are ready for their first smart phone.
In all, Cal offers us a hopeful view for the future. With the shimmer of novelty beginning to fade, now is the time to think about how to integrate digital technology into our lives and into the lives of our children.
While summer is a time for rest and relaxation, it is also an opportunity for personal growth. Indeed, the increase in external freedom, which the summer months often afford our sons, provides an occasion for growth in interior freedom.
In this week's episode, Mr. Joe Cardenas, head of mentoring at The Heights School, discusses how you can help your son make the most of the summer months. To this end, Mr. Cardenas suggests looking at the summer from two perspectives: the bird's eye view and the daily routine. Looking over the summer as a whole--perhaps with a calendar in hand--we can help our sons set goals and make big-picture plans. But goals without effective systems are mere wishes, so we should also encourage our sons to develop a good daily routine that will help him to realize these goals.
In particular, Mr. Cardenas suggests five areas for routines:
Of course, and as always, encouragement should come in the context of freedom and in an age appropriate manner; we want to help our sons set goals and formulate routines for themselves, not impose our own ideas in an overly rigid manner. One of the great advantages of the summer is, after all, the opportunity for our boys to grow in the use of their freedom.
Stay tuned after the podcast for a few other resources that might be helpful as you plan your summer, including a summer-planning guide PDF now available on The Heights Forum. You don’t need to subscribe to anything to get it, we just want to help.
Also, join us for a follow-up Q&A webinar with Mr. Joe Cardenas and Mr. Bill Dardis (head of the Heights Internship Program). If you have questions about wake-up times, summer jobs, and chores, bring ‘em by and we’ll discuss. To register for the webinar, visit HeightsForum.org.
Show Highlights
-How summer can be a time of great personal growth
-Two perspectives on the summer: the birds eye view and the daily routine
-Ideas on helping your son make use of a calendar
-Why increased freedom during the summer is an opportunity for growth in virtue
-The importance of systems for success, not just goals
-Areas for daily routines: wake-up time, reading plan, life of prayer, physical exercise, service, bed-time
-How should parents discuss goals and routines with their son?
-Three ways to help your son develop a summer routine: know your son, engage his freedom, share your own goals
-Should my son get a job?
-Unstructured free time is just as important for older boys as it is for younger boys
-Why personal growth is ultimately oriented towards the service of others
Suggested Reading
Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper
Additional Listening
Three Components of a Great Lower School Summer
Heights Resources
Planning
Free Printable Summer Planner PDF
Fitness
Reading
Heights Book Review (A review of contemporary literature for boys)
What is present in every Platonic dialogue, the subject of one of Cicero’s famous letters, and the kind of relationship Christ wished to have with his twelve apostles and with each of us? It is friendship.
From facebook friends to philosophic treaties, 70’s songs to Tennyson poems, we hear about friendship in many different contexts. But what is authentic friendship? How do we foster it? How do we help our children grow in their friendships? And in the end, how do we help them grow in the friendship of all friendships, namely that with Our Lord?
In this week’s podcast, David Maxham discusses such questions as these. Based on a talk he recently gave to our senior class, David considers the lofty ideal of friendship and offers practical advice on how to make this ideal a reality. He first discusses why senior year is a fitting time for our students to think more deeply about their relationships, and how a few good friends can make all the difference during their college years (and beyond). He then dives into the importance of admonition and sincerity in authentic friendships, offering insights on the art of amicable correction and the necessity of being vulnerable for forming friendships. Lastly, David turns his attention to how parents can help their children grown in their friendships. As is often the case, here there can be no substitute for practicing what one preaches and patiently preaching what one practices.
Resources
Alasdair MacIntrye: True friendships are rare, but possible
Is Friendship Possible?
“We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”
― G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study
Mr. de Vicente concludes this three part series on raising iGen. Given the forces and impact of our digital world and general culture, our headmaster presents considerations and strategies for parents seeking to accompany their sons on the path to Christian Manhood.
Mr. de Vicente continues his discussion of iGen, turning from the protecting, distracting, unsettling forces that have affected our sons to the impact of those forces on their character.
Our headmaster begins a three episode series on iGen. In today's episode, Mr. de Vicente explores the influences and forces that have overprotected, distracted, and unsettled our sons.
In this week's episode Mr. Michael Moynihan discusses an exercise that allows teachers to isolate the relativistic variable in the moral minds of their students. What is relativism? What is the exercise? And why does any of this matter to those of us just trying to live the good life–however you define that?
Mr. Moynihan's article available here.
Mr. Tom Royals, Assistant Headmaster of The Heights, offers his thoughts on the importance of hosting our sons and their friends at home. Rather than being a place to be avoided, the home should be a social hub and a place of gathering for our boys. This takes work and investment, but the effort is worth the while when friendships flourish and our sons develop relationships informed by the culture of the home.